


Adventures in Babysitting

by stranger_thanfiction



Series: Stranger Things 30 Day Challenge [16]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Babysitting, Canon Compliant, Fluff, Misunderstandings, Post-Season/Series 03, Robin is a good bro, basically robin bonding with the kiddos, dustin deserves the world, i mean it follows canon but idk WHERE in canon, robin is a lesbian, willy is a covert gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-29 21:20:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20088940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stranger_thanfiction/pseuds/stranger_thanfiction
Summary: Robin’s doing Steve a favor by watching the kids tonight.





	Adventures in Babysitting

**Author's Note:**

> Today's prompt is Funniest Line? and of course, this falls between three- "Did Nana call?!", "I'm pretty sure it's Gumbo", and the entire New Coke argument between Mike and Lucas. What came out of me trying to decide is this related fluff piece about Robin babysitting for Steve.  
As always, kudos and comments work better than coffee for writing fuel. Even so, you can always yell at me on my tumblr @modernfeminismtalking. Enjoy!

Robin’s doing Steve a favor by watching the kids tonight. Between Family Video shifts with her and hanging out with the kids, he’s barely gotten any type of studying in.

The dingus is trying to make it into community college for the spring semester, and Robin said she’d help with whatever he needed.

She kinda meant help with math or Spanish, but he asked her this morning to do this, and she really couldn’t say no. 

You know I wouldn’t ask, Bucks,” he asked, flipping both his hair and his towel onto his shoulder in one fell swoop, “but I already promised Mrs. Byers that I’d chaperone the kids, and Jonathan and Nancy went ahead and planned something, and since you’re in on our little secret I thought-”

“Dingus, I told you yes already.”

The kids are coming over to his place, so Steve allowed her free reign through the ancient Harrington mansion for the night. 

_ (“No parties, no alcohol, no girls!” he said to her, and she rolled her eyes. _

_ “Other than The Party, okay, drinking gives me migraines, and you still haven’t given me Tammy’s number so”) _

Steve, the helicopter mother hen that he is, left the number for the library and the numbers of all the mothers “just in case something happens, Robin, and you can’t get a hold of me. God, you can never be too careful in Hawkins!” 

And isn’t that the truth?

The kids showed up around 5, each one of them except El carrying large rucksacks on their backs and wide smiles on their faces. Robin met them on the porch, blanket already around her shoulders in response to the cold from the house.

They parked their bikes in Steve’s front lawn and began making their way into the house.

“Robin!” Dustin cheered, pulling the older girl into a hug.

The hug threw her off, but she returned it, and he stepped back to look around her. 

“Where’s Steve?” Erica’s brother asked, the redhead beside him quirking an aggressive eyebrow at Robin. 

“He asked me to keep tabs on you guys, tonight, since he’s studying, for once, ” she smiled, and the group of teenagers rolled their eyes in unison. 

Okay, harsh.

“We’re all fourteen now, we really don’t need a babysitter,” Mike, Nancy Wheeler’s brother, huffed, and wow, she can see the familial resemblance. 

“Trust me, guys, I am not here to babysit.”

They all look unconvinced. 

“Seriously, Steve just asked me to be around in case anything goes bad. I’m not going to hover or anything,” Robin stressed, crossing her arms over her chest.

None of the kids believed her, but Dustin still patted her on the arm as they all headed into the house. 

Tonight, they were playing Dungeons and Dragons, something Robin knew a little bit about, but first they all wolfed down pizza.

Robin mentally patted herself on the back for calling ahead of time, of course using Steve’s money. 

The pizza was gone in ten minutes, and the boys began to set up their board in the living room. Will Byers pulled out four books of varying titles, a soft smile on his face, and El and Max moved out of the way of the game, giggling quietly to themselves.

The boys got themselves settled, and the campaign commenced. 

Holy shit, kids are loud. 

Was she this loud?

As the kids spread out, Robin simply watched, amused by their interactions. 

Before Steve, she’d never really had a group of friends. She had her band friends and her language club and honor society friends, but they all never really hung out outside of school. 

Robin spent most of her Friday nights alone with Blockbuster movies and take out food, and honestly, she didn’t mind it that way. 

Keith once asked her out on a date, and she lied in the nicest possible way by saying she had to help her sister clean their dog.

Robin’s an only child, and a cat person, but she wasn’t about to tell an acquaintance she preferred girls over guys. 

Luckily, neither of them spoke of it again. She continued on with her life, and he’ll occasionally ask her about Celia and Senor Fluffers. 

Robin still doesn’t really have a “group,” unless group means her, Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan getting breakfast once and a while to ruminate over shared trauma and pancakes. 

So yeah, Robin really never had a group dynamic; watching these kids is kind of like watching animals in a zoo. 

Mike, their Dungeon Master, is the clear leader of their little group, with El as his second, even though she’s not playing. 

During lulls in the game, Robin notices them softly smiling at each other, and mentally makes a note to check all the bathrooms later, just in case.

If Robin didn’t know that girl could flip a car with her mind, she’d make a comment just to see Wheeler flush.

Mike’s best friend, Will, sat directly beside him around the board, and was currently debating whether the group should go ahead with their attack or be defensive, his smitten best friend oblivious. 

Across the board, Lucas was wildly gesticulating with his hands.

“Will, just roll. If it comes up a spell, you be defensive. I roll next, so I can be offensive,” he starts, clearly exasperated with the time it’s taking to decide.

“Don’t be a dick, Lucas, the village is in danger,” Will says, going back to look at the die.

Lucas groans, and Max’s red hair pops up from the corner. 

“Yeah, Lucas, don’t be an asshole,” she says, smacking her gum, “let Will the Wise do his thing.”

“And, besides, it’s my roll next, Lucas,” Dustin chimes in, wiping his mouth after taking a drink of soda.

Will rolls, and Mike excitedly reads off the next step to the quest. 

Robin began to be enraptured in the game, so much so that she didn’t notice Max and El park themselves next to her in the dining room that connected to the living room.

“Yes, they are all this loud, all the time,” Max said, and Robin nearly jumped out of her skin.

Hand on her chest, she agreed.

“I don’t have any siblings, so I didn’t know what to expect, but this wasn’t it.”

El nodded her head thoughtfully, her scrunchied half pony bobbing at the top of her head. 

“They scared me,” she said quietly, a smile gracing her features “when we first met.”

Robin looks over at the four nerds currently screaming at each other over the number nine, and looks back at the younger girl.

“You’re not telling me you’re scared of them now, are you?”

El’s face breaks out in a bright smile, and she laughs, a quiet hopeful sound.

“No, definitely not. Not after Dustin sprayed Steve’s hairspray in Lucas’ eyes.”

Robin kind of wants to know the story of how this happened, and most importantly, the brand of Steve “The Hair” Harrington’s hairspray.

“He did what?” Robin asked, looking over at the kid ready to pounce on Mike.

The young girl’s face fills with glee, and she excitedly stumbles into the funniest story she knows. 

Max and El ended up telling her more embarrassing stories about the kids and Steve, and Robin’s heart fills because wow, she attracts idiocy doesn’t she?

El and Max right now are looking up at her expectantly, and Robin realizes she missed their question. 

She looks at them blankly.

“I asked,” Max rolls her green eyes, “when did you and Steve start dating?” 

Robin, who is taking a sip of her New Coke, chokes on the straw and sends herself into a coughing fit. 

“When did Steve and I what?” she thankfully keeps her shrieking to a minimum, but the coughs already attracted the boys over.

“Robin, are you okay?” Will asks worriedly, helping her to sit while Dustin gets her a glass of water. 

She takes the cup from him gratefully. 

“Yeah, I’m good,” she smiles at him, before rounding on Max, “what gave you the impression that Steve and I were dating?”

Suddenly, all the kids look guilty, and Dustin raises his hand. 

“You’re always around each other,” he defended, “and you work together! And you come to movie nights together!”

“That doesn’t mean we’re dating!”

“You cuddle during movie night!”

“Platonic cuddling is a real thing, dingus!”

“We assumed that he was being an idiot and just wasn’t catching on,” Max butted in, ready to shut down the argument. 

“He’s not the brightest..” Robin conceded, trailing off, “but we’re not together!”

El speaks up from beside Mike, her cheek on his shoulder.

“Why not?”

Robin stops, mouth open. Her mind races to find an answer. 

How does one explain the concept of homosexuality in a way that doesn’t get them banned from babysitting duty?

Will’s mouth drops.

“Oh, no. I forgot about the thing,” he starts, seemingly panicked. 

Robin’s heart stops, and the kids crowd around him.

“Mike,” Will starts, thinking Robin won’t see the elbow he throws into the boy’s side, “remember what Jonathan and Nancy were talking about at dinner last week?”

“What, no, we were--oh. Oh, yeah,” Mike starts halfheartedly, “it was something about a girl who’s going to Perdue? Nancy said he was excited about this date.”

Will winks at her, and Robin starts to think the kids were lying, until Dustin spoke up.

“Shit, wait, I think Steve was trying to mention something about that to me, too,” he looks sheepishly at Robin, “except I kept trying to talk about Suzie...sorry Robin.”

The kids look at her sadly, like she should be upset about Steve’s date that might be fake, so she decides to change the subject.

“It’s fine, man.”

The kids still have pitying looks on their faces when her and Steve’s conversation from before the Russian tunnels pops into her head.

“So, what did Steve mean when he said you can bend like Gumby?”

The rest of the kids groaned, but Dustin perked up, a wide smile on his face.

“You can’t actually bend like-” Lucas is cut off.

“Gumby? Yes I can.”

Dustin turns to Robin.

“I can’t believe we haven’t talked about this! I have cleidocranial dysplasia.”

She begins to mouth the words, but Dustin keeps going. 

“I used to have a gap in my teeth, but then these pearls came in,” he purrs, and Robin makes a face in response, “and I also don’t have collarbones so I can do things like this!”

He excitedly pushes his shoulders together like it’s nothing, and all the kids groan and beg him to stop. 

It takes everything in Robin not to freak out, so she calmly takes a sip of her soda.

Mike makes a face. 

“Ugh, how can you even drink that shit?”

“It’s good, Mike, that’s why!” Lucas responds for her, “We’ve already had this conversation!”

The kids roll their eyes at the pair, and make their way back to the living room.

“Can we please go back to the campaign now?” Will asks weakly, to which Lucas laughs and throws an arm around his shoulders. 

Holy shit. Crisis averted.

Steve comes back later, after they’ve all settled down for their sleepover in the living room, exhaustion across his face and hair limp as if his hands have run through it repeatedly.

“How was studying?” she asks from her perch on the breakfast bar, and he jumps. 

“It was good,” he starts, wiping a hand across his face, “how were the kids?”

She smirks. 

“Great! They asked why we aren’t dating and Dustin showed me his collarbone trick.”

Robin takes a sip of her New Coke and Steve’s eyes bug.

“They did what?”

“Oh, yeah, and they argued about New Coke.”

“Jesus, shitheads, again?!”

Robin chuckles to herself as she hears the living room erupt in loud laughs, and thinks that maybe this group stuff isn’t that bad. 


End file.
